Team Partners Telecommunications

What’s Happening with the IoT?

Posted on Apr 24, 2026

It’s been some years, seven in fact, since we first started to write about the Internet of Things. At the time our concern was about security and how having random IoT devices in your home was potentially risky, leaving one open to private information being stolen. Our comment was that “The Internet of Things, IoT, is not unlike deciding to walk naked down your local High Street and expecting no-one to look at you”, in other words, asking for trouble! It’s worth mentioning that this can still be the case, but first let us look at another aspect of IoT, and that is how it’s changing.

There are now over 21 billion IoT devices out there and the way they operate has changed significantly. Was the time that IoT devices were reactive, they sensed things and then sent the information sensed to the Cloud for processing. Increasingly devices now have their own processing capabilities and can therefore not only report, they can react. Physical AI, as it’s called, enables robots, vehicles and smart sensors to register something, work out what that something is and then to react to it, changing the face of jobs such as routine maintenance and quality control as devices sort things out without any recourse to or from humans.

There’s more, the ability to process information within the device, Edge AI Integration, to give it its full name, cuts down the need for bandwidth and, being self-contained is of course, more secure, and security has been enhanced by another 2026 development, the EU Cyber Resilience Act, which is forcing manufacturers to build security measures into their devices, something you’d imagine they’d have wanted to do years ago. From September this year security breaches will have to be reported and this in itself is changing the face of the IoT.

Of perhaps less interest to the casual device user is the fact that manufacturers are increasing introducing hybrid connectivity, so devices that use both 5G and LPWAN, the latter for low power sensor networks, the former for high-bandwidth, mobile application and, here’s the clever bit, both within a single management platform.

Of more interest to the average user is that manufacturers are beginning to recognise the benefit of interoperability, meaning that one manufacturer’s product will work with another manufacturer’s system, a sort of standardisation that will make product options more attractive.

For all of that, security still remains something to be very aware of, and, with IoT devices being used everywhere and without borders, the idea of device security has moved from traditional access and control to a more challenging conversation: how to establish trust, visibility and control across a constantly changing landscape. The answer is addressed under the heading of ‘IoT Identity Security’, and to quote its website the task is, “at its core, to ensure that every device interacting with systems, networks, and data can be trusted by enabling robust device authentication and establishing a unique identity for each device.” It does this by relying on cryptographic identities, certificates, keys and policy-based controls rather than usernames and passwords. It’s complex!

Is there any less need to be vigilant in 2026 than in 2019? No, quite the opposite. Research consistently shows that unmanaged or unknown devices are disproportionately involved in security breaches, often because they lack proper authentication or are running outdated credentials. IoT devices remains a serious threat to home and business. If you’re reading this and recognise the problem, or if you have IoT devices you’re not absolutely sure about, you may want to have a read of the deviceauthority.com website.